Pedestrians need more rail crossing along our coast

The train tracks along the North County coast afford Coaster and Amtrak riders breathtaking views of the Pacific Ocean. A ride down the coast at sunset alone is well worth the cost of a ticket.

And yet the proximity of the train tracks to the ocean through much of coastal North County, a plus to riders, is a decided negative to residents, serving as a wall that keeps them from getting to the beach. There are neighborhoods in Encinitas and Carlsbad just a few blocks from the ocean where residents have to travel a mile or more to the north or south to find a legal access route to the beach.

Building more overpasses or underpasses is a pricey proposition, more than the average coastal city can afford. And state transportation funds are consistently hard to come by – even in good times, when any surplus is immediately channeled to the powerful unions and their pensions or pie-in-the-sky projects like Gov. Jerry Brown’s bullet train.

So the underpass that just opened in Encinitas across from Swami’s beach is cause for celebration. Residents previously had to walk up to a mile to get to the nearest legal crossing, at Chesterfield Drive, or cross illegally. We know a lot of people do this, but it’s really not wise: Our rail corridor is one of the busiest in the country, with roughly 50 trains passing through every day.

The city of Encinitas contributed about $1.2 million of the $5.9 million cost, and the San Diego Association of Governments chipped in an additional $3 million. The balance came from state grants.

The Santa Fe Drive underpass is the first of four planned for Encinitas, at a combined cost of more than $25 million – money well spent.

There is, however, a significantly less pricey proposition, and it is our hope that cities that can’t afford fancy overpasses or underpasses will go this route: at-grade pedestrian crossings, simply a marked crosswalk with a signal light that reacts to pedestrians pushing a button.

Granted, we don’t want too many of these – our coastal train tracks are a key freight route, and we certainly don’t want to impede commerce. But there are pockets up and down the coast where some sort of coastal access is badly needed.

Carlsbad’s barrio is one that comes to mind. The only straight shot to the beach is Tamarack Avenue to the south or Carlsbad Village Drive to the north, leaving nearly a mile-long stretch of residential neighborhood, populated by lots of families with young children, without easy access to the beach.

Carlsbad is doing a feasibility study to consider its options for a crossing at Chestnut Avenue. Permission must be granted by the California Public Utilities Commission. Let’s hope it moves forward – quickly.